The Creative World’s Bullshit Industrial Complex

This is really, really common the world of internet marketing. If you need a great example, well, there's a reason 'expert roundups' are one of the in things at the moment. Why bother actually trying to gain any expertise when you can approach people more popular/famous than you and aggregate the results in a mostly empty fluff article?

And by the time it reaches the internet forums (the Digitalpoint/Warrior Forum kind), it usually ends up coming down to something akin to 'Step 1, find fame. Step 2, write eBook. Step 3, sell to suckers on internet forums'.

Much of this is also true for productivity/business (aka entrepreneur porn).

There are whole networks of business/startup podcasts where hosts interview knowledgable entrepreneurs to share tips & tricks. More often than not the entrepreneurs themselves are hosts of other podcasts and their company/product is their podcast.

It's the same reason celebrities follow each other on social media.

Use of the word "learnings" is itself a strong indicator of the bullshit complex at work.

A related issue is the coworker who knows you are working with technology X and provides links to tools to make your technology X toolchain better, particularly in a public forum like stand-ups. Such recommendations are fine when the intent is genuine, but often I feel it's just a case of trying to earn brownie points with management. /rant

I really like this post. Thank you for writing it.